Despite outrage from critics, popes rarely resign
Only a few popes have resigned in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Don't expect Pope Benedict XVI to join their ranks.
The uproar caused by reports that, as an archbishop years ago in Germany and later as a Vatican cardinal, Benedict and his aides were slow to defrock abusive priests, cannot be explained as the church equivalent of Watergate with the pope in the role of U.S. president.
Past popes who quit served mostly in the church's first millennium, according to Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey. Pope Celestine V resigned in 1294, shortly after taking the papal office. (In his "Inferno," poet Dante Alighieri is believed to have placed Celestine inside the gate of hell for his cowardice.)
Read entire article at AP
The uproar caused by reports that, as an archbishop years ago in Germany and later as a Vatican cardinal, Benedict and his aides were slow to defrock abusive priests, cannot be explained as the church equivalent of Watergate with the pope in the role of U.S. president.
Past popes who quit served mostly in the church's first millennium, according to Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in New Jersey. Pope Celestine V resigned in 1294, shortly after taking the papal office. (In his "Inferno," poet Dante Alighieri is believed to have placed Celestine inside the gate of hell for his cowardice.)